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Running faucets or leaks: What most strained New Orleans during the freeze?

Updated January 7, 2018 at 1:03 PM;Posted January 6, 2018 at 1:56 PM

The Mardi Gras Fountain was covered with ice at the lakefront in New Orleans on Tuesday, January 2, 2018. (Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)(Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com |The Times-Picayune)

Faced with too many people running their faucets for too long to keep pipes from freezing, the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board urged residents Wednesday (Jan. 3) to "immediately turn off running water." The idea, officials said, was that running the tap all day had strained the water distribution system on the city's east bank, prompting the utility to reduce water pressure so the system could keep up with demand.

But it was actually leaks from pipes burst open by freezing weather that largely plagued other utilities across the United States this week, a trend that calls into question the S&WB's tap-running explanation. A spokesman said the agency continues to lose an estimated 40 percent of its water supply due to leaks in subsurface pipes. An audit produced in March found "physical loss of water" accounted for an even higher percentage: more than half of the utility's daily consumption in 2015.

Zachary Hudson, the spokesman, on Friday night did not have immediately available how much water the system currently loses daily due to leaks. Rather, echoing officials earlier this week, Hudson wrote in an email that the trigger for the S&WB reducing pressure was "overuse across the east bank during this cold snap."

"Leaks in the system are ongoing and need to be addressed, regardless of the weather," he wrote.

Last year's audit said New Orleans' water system in 2015 lost about 77.5 million gallons of water per day due to "physical loss of water from the distribution system." That's more than half of the total 143 million gallons the audit found the system produced daily.

The audit, conducted by Denver-based consultant Nora Freeman, also indicated that the effect of leaks in New Orleans might pale in comparison to many other U.S. utilities. Using a metric devised by the American Water Works Association, the audit gave the Sewerage & Water Board an "Infrastructure Leak Index" score of nearly 40 in 2015.

Per the American Water Works Association's guidelines, any score higher than 8 means a utility has "such a level of leakage (that) is not an effective use of water as a resource." Of 21 other utilities that have provided data, the audit says, all had 2011 scores ranging from 1.15 to 12.68.

Hudson said the S&WB completed more than 27,000 repair work orders in 2017 and is poised to kick patches into high gear as the city embarks on $2.4 billion worth of street and underground infrastructure repairs over the next eight years. "This work will allow us to build stronger, more resilient infrastructure and be a major down payment on our city's future," Hudson wrote.

Aside from leak repairs, the agency is banking on two new water hammers to iron out future pressure drops and avoid boil advisories. But Hudson said one of those hammers won't come online until August, while the other is scheduled for March 2019.

As for this week's freeze, S&WB officials skirted over the potential effect of leaks. Joseph Sensebe, the interim operations manager, said Wednesday that customers had ratcheted up daily water use during the cold weather, from the normal range of 120 million to 125 million gallons per day to about 155 million gallons earlier in the week. The water distribution system's daily capacity, Sensebe said, is 180 million gallons.

No mention of leaks was made during a S&WB news conference Wednesday. Rather, Sensebe highlighted heavy customer use.

"It's just typical operating procedure," he said Wednesday. "It's cold, and we've got a lot of folks who want to protect their property. We understand that."

Outside New Orleans, waterworks specialists have said heavy consumption from faucets could place an undue burden on a system during freezing temperatures. And New Orleanians had cause for worry: The metro area logged the longest string of consecutive days with freezing temperatures since 2010, according to the National Weather Service.

But by and large, pressure reductions and boil advisories arise from leaks and burst pipes -- not so much running taps.

Zachary-based water consultant Ben Bridges said Thursday that big problems usually stem from broken pipes and leaks that go unnoticed until long after a freeze. That, combined with Louisiana residents being unaccustomed to prepping their household pipes for cold, typically leads to reduced pressure, Bridges said.

"I wouldn't think it would be that much of a burden on the system to have a dripping faucet," said Bridges, a member of the Southwest Section of the American Water Works Association with over 25 years of experience in the water industry. "But when you have a running line when people don't realize they have a leak, that's a problem."

Still, Bridges acknowledged Louisiana faces unique challenges. Such is also the opinion of Greg DiLoreto, a waterworks specialist who chairs the American Society of Civil Engineers' Committee for America's Infrastructure. DiLoreto pointed to New Orleans' flat, largely below-sea-level terrain and more tropical climate as factors that cheapen comparisons.

"Certainly, from our area, we've never experienced a shortage due to weather conditions," DiLoreto, who is based in Portland, Ore. "However, having said that, I can understand where the concern might be."

Likewise hesitant to draw comparisons is Freeman, the 2017 audit's author. She wrote in the audit that Hurricane Katrina's wallop on New Orleans in 2005 makes the Sewerage & Water Board "not readily comparable to any other utility in the country." Nor did the leak index's creators account for an "exceptional situation" like lingering Katrina-related damage when drafting target recommendations, Freeman wrote.

Hudson, the S&WB's spokesman, said much the same Friday night. "As the water audit noted numerous times, it is apples and oranges to compare [the Sewerage & Water Board's] unique situation to other utilities due to the widespread and devastating damage Hurricane Katrina caused on our infrastructure," he wrote.